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Address at the Laying of the 
Corner Stone 



BY 



CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 



Address at the Laying of the 
Corner Stone 



BY 



CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 



Reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Societt, 
FOR October, 1909. 



WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS. 

THE DAVIS PRESS. 

1909. 






The Society 
MAFf -3 i8}» 



ADDRESS AT THE LAYmG OF THE 

CORNER sto:n^e 



Collectively, we are here to-day to lay the corner stone 
of an edifice, elaborate in design and costly in structure, 
dedicated solely to the preservation of the records of the 
past, written, printed or sculptured, — the raw material, 
so to speak, upon which the historical investigator works. 
Individually, I am here in no private capacity, but as the 
head of another and older organization, with a local habi- 
tation devoted to much the same end. Representing the 
Massachusetts Historical Society with its home in Boston, 
I extend the right hand of fellowship to that American 
Antiquarian Society which, ever making its abiding-place 
here in Worcester, to-day formally enters on the construc- 
tion of what it believes will prove its home for generations 
of membership. But when, committed to the task, I 
addressed myself to the work of preparation, I found my 
thoughts insensibly turning in a direction somewhat unusual, 
— one, in character, almost paradoxical, and, perhaps, not 
in entire harmony with the spirit of the occasion. Let 
me explain. 

To compare themselves unfavorably with the earlier 
time, its achievements, its tendencies and its ideals, — 
to dwell upon their own earthy shortcomings when placed 
in bold contrast with the lofty aspirations and heroic accom- 
plishments of an earlier and better day, has been the privi- 
lege of almost all countries and of every generation. The 
decline from loftier ideals, — the general lowering of stand- 
ards, — the ever-present tendency to materialism, have time 
out of mind been the favorite text of the poet and the 
moralist, as to-day they lend inspiration to the ready 
editorial writer. In this connection memory at once recalls 
the eloquent voice from Cheyne Row, dilating through 



thirty volumes on the golden beauty of silence, as he de- 
nounced the garrulous, rag-gathering age in which his own 
lot was cast, given over to idle talk and the worship of 
mammon; and he compared a noisy but deteriorated present 
with the sturdy and patient heroism of a silent past. But, 
to me standing here to-day, things somehow assume another 
aspect, — in fact an altogether otherwise aspect; — and, as 
I see, firmly and truly laid, this comer stone of a building 
dedicated, — lovingly and reverently dedicated, — ^to the 
safe preservation of the memorials of the earlier time, and 
of the present surely destined itself soon to become an 
earlier time, I find myself impressed not with an over- 
whelming sense of our own shortcomings, but, strange to 
say, with a somewhat bitter realization of the shortcomings 
of the former generations — shortcomings which we with 
most strenuous effort in vain strive to make good in some 
slight degree. 

Look at that corner stone! There it rests; and, upon it 
will presently rise a stately edifice in which will be stored, — 
safe from moth and rust, from fire and from that damp 
more destructive than fire, — the accumulated and ever- 
accumulating records of the past. If there is one thing 
which more than any other one thing differentiates the 
civilized human being from the beast that perishes, it is 
this respect and jealous care of the records of the race. 
Yet, in its more developed and differentiated form, how 
old is that care? — how far back can it be traced? It is 
merely of yesterday at most; in its fully developed phase 
it is of to-day only. 

Take, as examples, the Society I here represent, — take 
the Society which to-day places this corner stone: — The 
Massachusetts Historical Society is, I have reason to believe, 
the earliest historical society, pure and simple, in the world : 
— it probably antedates all others anywhere, — it certainly 
antedates all other such societies in America; yet it was 
organized as recently as 1791, less than a century and a 
quarter since; while, even according to the biblical chron- 
ology, the poor world is, in the language of Rosalind, "al- 
most six thousand years old." A jealous respect for the 



records and memorials of the past is, therefore, a distinctly 
modern invention! Indeed, as President of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society, I never think of the matter 
from this point of view, that a feeling of exasperation does 
not come over me, — a species of lamentation over what 
impresses me as an ancient tale of wrong. What were the 
previous generations doing that they so wholly failed in 
their obligations, — could in no way rise to an equality with 
the occasion? Why bequeath to us this hiatus valde deflen- 
4us? But again I recur to the Society I represent, and our 
Massachusetts experience. That Society, the undisputed 
father of all similar societies in the Commonwealth, 
dates from January, 1791, — a scant 120 years ago. The 
earliest settlement of Massachusetts had then been ef- 
fected over 170 years, and, in 1791, the last survivor 
of those who founded Boston had been over sixty 
years in his grave. Six succeeding generations had 
been gathered. In that way in which we have done so 
much, what had they accomplished? Nothing! — Absolutely 
nothing ! 

Yet what priceless human records had in those years been 
lost, — irretrievably lost! Take a single case, — the first 
which occurs to me. When Governor John Winthrop and 
his company, having temporarily, in the early summer of 
1630, camped in what is now Charlestown, moved in the 
autumn of that year across to the opposite peninsula of 
Shawmut, they found William Blackstone, — a species of 
hermit, wearing an old canonical coat, — established in 
what was pronounced for those times "a pleasant cottage," 
on the West, or sunset, slope of Beacon Hill, looking up 
the river Charles. He had already been there five years. 
Presently he moved away, making for himself a new home 
at what he called Study Hill, not far from Providence, 
where the river, which here in Worcester finds its source, 
still perpetuates his name; and there, forty years later, 
in 1675, he died. A student, as well as a hermit, William 
Blackstone left behind him not only a library large for those 
days, — numbering, indeed, some 160 volumes, — but also 
ten manuscript books, valued in the inventory of his estate 



at the not excessive sum of six-pence each, or five shillings 
for the lot. Close upon Blackstone's death, — indeed, one 
short month only after, — King Philip's War broke out; 
and among the first things to go up in flame and smoke was 
Blackstone's home. In it were his library, as also those 
"ten paper books." Shortly before valued at five shillings, 
these "paper books" in all human probability contained 
Blackstone's written record of his hermit life at Shawmut 
during the nine years from 1625 to 1634, and of the forty 
years subsequently passed by him on the bank of the Black- 
stone. If they did, we would now give a King's ransom 
to recover them! — but they are gone — irrevocably gone! 
How much else of similar character and scarcely less value, 
throwing light on the men and events of that intensely 
interesting period, — New England's Genesis, — has also been 
in like manner lost, cannot even be surmised. All we do 
know is that it was by merest chance only that Bradford's 
and Winthrop's unique and invaluable narratives did not 
also disappear. The first, indeed, vanished wholly, and 
was lost to sight for nearly a century, — supposed to be 
irrevocably gone, until, by purest accident, brought slowly 
to light in London some fifty years ago; while Winthrop's 
no less inestimable journal was exposed to every vicissitude 
for a century and a half, and was first put in print as recently 
as 1825. No common and safe depository for such material 
existed in 1650 ; nor, indeed, for over a century after. Its 
interest and value were simply not understood. 

I continually ask myself — How did this occur? Who 
were the men of those days? Why did it never occur to 
John Winthrop and John Cotton and Richard Saltonstall 
that they were founding an Empire, and that it behooved 
them accordingly to do that which a hundred and seventy 
years later was at last tardily done by Jeremy Belknap, 
James Sullivan and James Winthrop? The generation 
subsequent to the founders produced the Dudleys, the 
Sewalls and the Mathers; and another, still later, the Rev. 
Thomas Prince and Dr. Mather Byles and Governor Thomas 
Hutchinson. How then did it chance that the Massachusetts 
Historical Society was left to be founded only yesterday 



as it were, in 1791, and by men of almost our own time? 
Why was it not founded, as assuredly it should have been, 
by Thomas Prince, in 1740; or by Cotton Mather in 1700; 
or, best of all, by John Cotton and John Winthrop and 
young Harry Vane, in 1635? Simply, the fathers were not 
equal to the occasion. 

Here in Worcester you did better. Isaiah Thomas, 
working journalist, practical printer and book-maker that 
he was, rose more nearly to the required level than the 
learned Cotton Mather; for, in 1812, when Thomas obtained 
from the Massachusetts Legislature the Act of Incorpora- 
tion of this Society, Worcester was a place with but 2,500 
inhabitants, — not nearly so large as was Boston when the 
author of New England's Magnalia flourished, over an 
hundred years before. As I have said, the loss sustained 
during that hundred years laches of the fathers transcends 
computation ; and, in this respect at least, the world certainly 
has not since gone backwards. Yet Carlyle stigmatized 
ours contemptuously as a "rag-gathering generation"! 
Possibly; still, manuscripts after all are but rags transformed 
and etherealized ; and, assuredly, it would have been far 
better had the previous generations been equally addicted 
to the gathering and preservation of that description of rags. 

The transformation since effected is great; so great, 
indeed, that another extreme has, perhaps, resulted. It 
was in 1794 that the Massachusetts Historical Society was 
formally incorporated; this, the American Antiquarian 
Society, followed, in 1812, eighteen years later; and the 
number of similar societies which have since, and especially 
of late years, come or been brought into existence, it would 
be needless, as well as beside my purpose, to try to enum- 
erate; suffice it to say, — Their name, also, is Legion. And 
thus we now find ourselves looking at the problem from 
another and wholly different point of view; a point from 
which one thing only is clear. That thing, however, it 
behooves all of us who are responsible for these organizations 
to consider well, and to consider it especially on such an 
occasion as this. Clearly, as respects such societies, the 
period of organization is over. In numbers they now 



manifestly tend to run into excess; and in that excess is 
peril; — for the present tendency undeniably is towards 
the careful and costly preservation of much in no way worth 
preserving, and to the printing of much more which, if 
measured by its value, had better never be put in type at 
all. As a consequence, our museums are already over- 
loaded, while the shelves and stacks of our libraries wholly 
fail to supply room for an accumulation which dates back 
a century only. Such an utterance may, especially on such 
an occasion as this, jar harshly on the ears of some, especially 
on those of the librarian class; but I venture a confident 
opinion that the world of scholarship would be in no wise 
appreciably poorer if one half, and that the larger half, 
of the printed matter now accumulated in our public libra- 
ries could to-morrow be obliterated — swept clean out of 
existence. The useless accumulation there is already 
terrific; its future, appalling. The same also is true of our 
museums — artistic, scientific, archaeologic. The stolid 
indifference of the fathers has passed in the children into 
what is little less than a craze of indiscriminate preservation. 
The abuse will, of course, work its own remedy; but not 
the less for that is it incumbent on us who are responsible 
for the present policy of these organizations to take note 
of the tendencies. Those even now call loudly for reform. 
For myself, I frankly admit that I never go into a modern 
museum or glance through the stacks of an up-to-date 
Public Library without reverting in memory to a remark 
somewhere made by Hawthorne, after wearisomely plodding 
through a great European collection, — in Paris, I think, — 
that it would be a most desirable consummation were 
some arrangement possible to be made by virtue of which 
each generation should cart its rubbish off with it. Myself 
an historical investigator, I, in a way, heartily endorse this 
suggestion. The crying need to-day is not for fresh and 
enlarged receptacles; but, to use a few long words, for a 
wiser discrimination and a more scientific differentiation. 
Moreover, not only do we accumulate too much, but, 
regardless of cost, space or utility, we duplicate these exces- 
sive accumulations. In this respect, it is, I confidently 



submit, with institutions much as it is with individuals. 
In the case of individuals, the noble aspirations and not 
unreasonable standards of even a century since would now 
by us be considered Quixotic; and most justly so. In 1600, 
Bacon, for instance, declared that he took all Learning for 
his Province; and from that day to this, the utterance has 
in him been admired. But such a purpose, humanly speak- 
ing, a possibility then, would now, if in like way announced, 
be regarded as the mouthing rhodomontade of a born 
sciolist. What is true in this respect of men is true also 
of organizations. To justify a continued existence they 
must in future differentiate; and, discarding all thought 
of universality, seek perfection in narrower but more care- 
fully selected fields. A full recognition of this fact, and 
implicit obedience to the law which therefrom follows, are, 
I hold, essential to the continued usefulness, not only of 
the Society I here represent and the sister Society which 
to-day sets this corner stone, but of all similar organizations. 
Each must take to heart old Pliny's maxim, and, like a 
cobbler, stick to his last. 

For example, take the case in hand: — This American 
Antiquarian Society was founded on a plan natural and 
proper enough a century ago ; manifestly, too ambitious now. 
Its chief and ostensible object was to be "the collecting 
and preserving the materials for a study of American History 
and antiquities"; but, in the century which has since inter- 
vened, American history and American antiquities have 
so differentiated and developed that no Society, local or 
otherwise, can hope to cover the field in its entirety. Did 
it attempt so to do it could at best only hope in some respects, 
and at great outlay, in a superficial way to duplicate what 
was much more thoroughly done elsewhere. It can attain 
force and excellence only by concentrated limitation; it 
must put forth its strength and apply its resources in some 
more narrowly selected field. 

In the case of this Society, that field, most fortunately, 
as it has seemed to me, is to a great extent marked out for 
it in advance. Its founder, Isaiah Thomas, I have already 
referred to. He was himself a journalist, and the author 



10 

of a history, for those days elaborate, of printing in America. 
He gave to the organization its initial impetus ; and, accord- 
ingly, it is in the productions of the early American press 
that your collections, already strong, should be slowly, 
systematically and patiently perfected. Through gift and 
purchase and exchange, your mission should be to get 
into the possession of the American Antiquarian Society 
specimens of everything printed in America prior to 1820, 
especially journals and newspapers. The total of titles 
so included would, I see it estimated in your "Handbook," 
be some 75,000 in number, of which the library already 
possesses over one-third. Slowly to complete the list at 
whatever sacrifice of time, labor and money, or through 
exchange or facsimile reproduction, should be the Society's 
mission as well as pride; and the value of such a collection, 
once made complete, it has been truly said, could not be 
over-estimated. 

This, prior to 1820; subsequently to that date the effort 
at inclusive perfection should, I submit, in wisdom be 
further differentiated, and yet more strictly localized. It 
should be specialized on what is known as "the Heart of 
the Commonwealth." Your collection should be made 
to include every book, periodical, journal or newspaper 
printed within a specific area, all the municipal documents 
and corporate reports of that area, and every manuscript 
record relating to it, judged worthy of preservation, upon 
which hands can be laid; and to universality and complete- 
ness in this chosen field other things should be made to give 
way. Space, money, thought and labor — all should be 
devoted to the accomplishment of one well-defined result. 
Miscellaneous literature and collections, no matter how 
tempting — works of art or of archaeology, no matter how 
rare, — both can, and assuredly will find a more appropriate 
place elsewhere, in libraries and museums specially designed 
for their reception, display and study. 

Looked at from this point of view, the situation needs 
to be grasped in a spirit at once large, comprehensive, 
catholic; for it is a world-wide problem, directly subject 
to far-reaching modern influences. It is, for instance, 



11 

always affected, sometimes revolutionized, by each new 
development of steam, electricity or chemistry. Ever- 
lastingly subject to these influences, the librarian and 
curator will in time get so far as to realize that this world 
of ours is, as respects its accumulations, passing out of the 
bookworm and provincial phase. The period of miscellane- 
ous, accidental and duplicated collection is over, and civil- 
ization is entering on an epoch of collectivism and concen- 
tration. Completeness, on the one hand, and the elimina- 
tion of the superfluous and the useless on the other, are 
the two great desiderata; but, to bring them about as results 
will at best be a very gradual educational process. The 
jackdaw and magpie spirit cannot be exorcized; and so it 
must be outgrown. Once, however, it is outgrown, and a 
more comprehensive and scientific method matured in place 
of it, the process of accumulation will proceed on a carefully 
matured plan, thereafter persistently adhered to. 

It is in the power, and in my judgment should be the 
ambition and the province of the American Antiquarian 
Society to contribute effectively and appreciably towards 
bringing this result about. Should it rise to an equality 
with the great occasion, the stone this day laid will 
prove indeed monumental, — a finger-post no less than a 
mile-stone. 








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